Monthly Archives: October 2014

further habits in internalizing compliments

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How do I increase my self-expression, when I want to give the compliment, but I am judging it? How do I get out of the vicious circle?

When we try to dance and judge the dance at the same time, we shall lose the excitement of dancing. We may even quit dancing.

Giving in relationships is the same. Giving compliments is a part of giving.

When I dance with all my passion, I am not busy judging it. When I acknowledge and give, I do it with all my passion.

You have trained yourself to criticise yourself – and lose excitement of life. Now start training yourself in the wanted direction. The only way is experiential learning. As we train in all my trainings. It is impossible to solve it by thinking about it.

Self-confidence in loving relationships

Is this the right person for me and is it genuine love?

It is one of the biggest questions that we face while we are starting new loving relationship.
And the truth is simple and confronting.

When I was a child (11) and my beloved ‘girl-friend’, decided to ‘love’ another child, I was hurt and painful. When it happened again, just because another beloved girl had to go back to her country, I cried 3 days (I was not a crying kid). Since then I decided to ‘control my love. Actually to prevent the pain.
The truth is simple – we are scared to make mistakes in our choices. Thus we look for proofs that this is the right one. It does not exist. We create love and trust, when we dare to trust ourselves.
The percentages of separations and divorces worldwide are huge. All of them start from waiting for “it has to be right”. When we have children, we do not wait for the love to be right. WE make it working.
Those who wait for the genuine experience lose it. Those who create it – are free. It is challenging, because it shows that we are bigger than our fears and self-manipulations.  We can and we should make our mind free from our fears that we cannot create our reality.

  • Do you trust yourself that you can create the wanted relationship?
  • Do you know how you want this relationship to develop?
  • Are you willing to invest to make this desire happen?
  • Are you going to create excitement in it?

You can train your mind to do it.

How to create a team

teamspiritHow can we create fast, effective and reliable processes of inspiring leadership and team-spirit?

I used to be a military deputy-commander in a highly-influential command unit. In response to high tension demanding culture, I created an inspirational leadership process that improved significantly our ability to perform effectively under stressful conditions.

Our ‘traditional-routine’ for our reserve service officers unit, would take us almost 3 days to get into high performance effective mode. At that specific situation, I invented a different process that succeeded to get everyone tuned, and in high quality performance in 3 hours.

The differences were in the attitude and communication tools I introduced into our unit. The steps were:

1) Create partnership through declaration of the mutual successes and mistakes beyond ranks
and formal authorities.

2) Ask every member to bring forward honesty and openness to learn from each other mistakes
and successes.

3) Define clearly the indications of success of the unit and the individuals.

4) Ask everyone to relate to what is not working in their areas of responsibility and in the
coordination with others, starting from the lower ranks to the higher ranks.

5) Ask everyone to come up with suggestions for these issues. Those suggestions had to be
practical and easy to apply in short term.

6) Ask everyone to relate to the processes that were working so everyone could learn and apply
in all units.

7) Ask for commitment of mutual enrichment through the processes, and define event-line for
next enrichments.

For applying such a process there is a need for short and simple preparations, including the steps that are mentioned above, plus a plan how to maintain it.

All these processes were used later in variety of all kinds of organizations, and they appeared to be contributing to fast, effective and reliable inspiring leadership and team-spirit.

In common organizations such a process will happen only after significant troubles. The key was to create trusted safe partnership, with simple communication tools. We – the leaders, had the courage to create this different process, as we trusted ourselves and our leadership. We created safety to win with us. It demanded from us to share our mistakes as much as our successes, and thus created the wanted partnership.

Giving compliments: empowering or manipulating?

acknowledgementWhen I give compliments in my close relationship. Am I authentic or is it a manipulation, meaning I want to get something?

When my children made their first steps, I was cheering and happy amazingly.

We know that these compliments and cheers are empowering our children to dare more. When we get support from strangers, we acknowledge them and we find it authentic. Actually, if we would support a stranger, we would expect to get acknowledgement. BUT, when it is in our close contact – suddenly there is a doubt – am I manipulating – meaning is it real or just an artificial act to please the other, or to get something? We live in a culture where we tend to criticize ourselves and others very easily, but when someone is performing well, for a long time we take it for granted.

The answer to those moments of doubts, can be found in the following self-reflection exercise:

  • Allow yourself to ask for a simple support from a stranger, and look at your willingness to thank the person, and how do you feel if you would not acknowledge this support.
  • Look at their body-language and see the authenticity, when they give without condition.
  • Then – offer your support to a stranger, and look how you feel when you are acknowledged.
  • Who do you doubt then? Your self-trust or theirs?

The answer is in the self-trust and authenticity areas. When I trust myself – it will be perfect to acknowledge the contribution of someone else to my life, without looking at it as a need. When I trust myself – I will not doubt my authenticity, as I am powerful enough to give as much as to receive. When I doubt my authenticity, it is a clear sign of my hesitation about my self-trust and my self-respect.

I trust my willingness to give beyond any proof. It is my contribution and my care.

How do I improve my self-confidence when I need to make an important decision?

Personally – I faced these hesitations when I faced significant questions relating to my future: Which direction of work or study shall I take? Shall I commit myself to specific relationship and get married? Shall I start a business, or shall I remain safe with my current work? Am I ready for having children? Where do I want to live my life? Will I be able to make it if I quit this work/relationship/ studies/ etc…?
Many people are disturbed by the question of self-confidence. It is always related to hesitations, doubts and fears, when it comes to decisions.

We are not worried about the successes that are available. We are worried of the consequences and prices we may pay if we make a wrong decision.

The answer to this major question of self-confidence starts in different 4 points, which the following questions will illustrate:

  • If we would be sure that whatever we decide, we can solve the challenge successfully. Would we hesitate or would we just decide?
  • Are we looking at the opportunities as deeply as we are looking at the threats?
  • Are we clear what may the consequences and prices be and prepare solutions for those?
  • Are we willing to look at those consequences as investments?

The issue of self-confidence is a justification for our desire to get the result, before we take the actions.

It is a matter of admitting that I will never know the result before I take the action, and committing myself – to solve the challenges out of joy and not out of fear of mistakes.
It is possible to train our mind to enjoy the process, by training ourselves to make benefits of our mistakes.

Are you clear how to train your thoughts and hesitations to serve your future success?